Skip to main content

HEALTHY DIET MAY IMPROVE SLEEP QUALITY


A diet low in fiber and high in saturated fat and sugar is associated with lighter, less restorative sleep with more arousals, a new study has found. The researchers suggest that adjusting diet to include more fiber and less saturated fat and sugar may be useful in the management of sleep disorders.
"Our message is that a diet high in fiber and low in saturated fat and sugar is associated with better sleep patterns. For a good night's sleep we recommend increasing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and eating less processed foods. That is a healthy diet in many other ways too particularly in terms of cardiovascular risk, so this is another reason to eat the right things."
The researchers did not study the mechanism behind these effects, but Dr St-Onge suggested that it could involve effects on circadian systems. "High carbohydrate intake delays circadian rhythms and reduces melatonin secretion, which would delay sleep onset. Hormones also come into play, as there is a heightened awareness of the reward value of food when sleep restricted. And when we are tired our decision making is not so disciplined, so we are more likely to give in to temptation to eat unhealthy food," she said.
The researchers acknowledge that further studies are needed to confirm their results. But if diet is found to play a causal role in sleep quality, then diet-based recommendations may be warranted for those who have sleep disorders, including insomnia, short sleep duration, and poor overall sleep quality.
"Increasing our understanding of the impact of dietary intake on nocturnal sleep will have many important and practical ramifications for public health," they conclude.
REFERENCE: DR SUE HUDGES, MEDSCAPE
Labels:

Comments

  1. Ankita28 August 2019 at 01:36

    Diet is very helpful for improving your sleep but the another way to cure sleeplessness problem is herbal supplements for insomnia. This will to relax your mind and help in deep sleep.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sphere

Photograph by Elena Saavedra Buckley. Once when I was about twelve I was walking down the dead-end road in Albuquerque where I grew up, around twilight with a friend. Far beyond the end of the road was a mountain range, and at that time of evening it flattened into a matte indigo wash, like a mural. While kicking down the asphalt we saw a small bright light appear at the top of the peaks, near where we knew radio towers to occasionally emit flashes of red. But this glare, blinding and colorless, grew at an alarming rate. It looked like a single floodlight and then a tight swarm beginning to leak over the edge of the summit. My friend and I became frightened, and as the light poured from the crest, our murmurs turned into screams. We stood there, clutching our heads, screaming. I knew this was the thing that was going to come and get me. It was finally going to show me the horrifying wiring that lay just behind the visible universe and that was inside of me too. And then, a couple se...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Year in Reading: Daniel Torday

I’ve been on leave from teaching this year, so it’s been a uniquely good 12 months of reading for me, a year when I’ve read for only one reason: fun. Now when I say fun … I’m a book nerd. So I tend to take on “reading projects.” The first was to work toward becoming a Joseph Conrad completist. I’m almost there. I warmed up with critic Maya Jasanoff ’s The Dawn Watch: Conrad in a Global World , which granted me permission to remember the capacious scope of his perspective, his humanistic genius. His masterwork was hard work, but Nostromo belongs on the shelf of both the most important and most difficult of the 20th century. The Secret Agent blew the top of my head off—it’s funny and deeply relevant to our moment, about a terrorist bombing gone horribly wrong. Under Western Eyes is all I got left. 2018 isn’t over yet. But then much fun came in reading whatever, whenever. That started with a heavy dose of Denis Johnson . The new posthumous collection of his short stories, The Lar...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dressing for Others: Lawrence of Arabia’s Sartorial Statements

Left: T. E. Lawrence; Right: Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) In the southwest Jordanian desert, among the sandstone mountains of Wadi Rum, there is a face carved into a rock. The broad cheeks and wide chin are framed by a Bedouin kuffiyeh headdress and ‘iqal, and beneath the carving, in Arabic, are the words: “Lawrence The Arab 1917.” If you are visiting Wadi Rum with a tour guide, you can expect to be brought to this carving. You may also be shown a spring where Lawrence allegedly bathed, as well as a mountain named after his autobiography, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, whose rock face has been weathered into a shape that does, from some angles, look a little like a series of pillars. I am familiar with the legend of T.E. Lawrence—fluent Arabist, British hero of the Arab Revolt of 1916, troubled lover of the Arab peoples—as well as with the ways the Jordanian tourism industry has capitalized on this legend. Nevertheless, I am still surprised when I hear someone mentio...
Post a Comment
Read more